forumadmin Note: This thread was split from another because it deserves a space of it's own. I'm sure all our poets laureate will find it useful.____________________________________________________

LOL Yogi!!! This's the first time I'd seen any of those.

Limericks, by right, not only have lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyming, with lines 3 and 4 rhyming together differently from the rest, but they have a pattern, or flow, which contains the same amount of syllables in each rhyming line.

So, this example of yours is good:

I once met a woman from RomeHer hair could of done with a combIn the midst of her tressesShe round chocolate messesAnd snacked on them all the way home.

But this one isn't:

We must take a stand to defend our rightsShout from the rooves and other great heightsLet the powers bewaretheir lent powers end is nearAnd we take to the streets in our tights.

Sometimes, the way in which the words are spoken can produce the desired flow, but when I was at school, we were taught to base limericks on the following one:

There once was a lady from Leeds,Who swallowed a packet of seeds.In a month, silly ass (donkey!),she was covered in grass,And couldn't sit down for the weeds.

Rhyming and syllable-wise, it follows the correct pattern, BUT, if the first line had read: "There was a young lady from Leeds", an emphasis has to be put on the word "was", since even though the sentence contains 8 syllables, to match lines 2 and 5, the flow gets distorted otherwise.

Still, that's just to illustrate what a proper l;imerick should sound like, against, say, a sonnet, which consists of 14 lines. The pattern goes: 1-2-1-2, 3-4-3-4, 5-6-5-6, 7-7; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet. : )

The rules for this forum have a link to a site that explains how to construct a limerick in such a way that a young child could understand it. While it explains the ideal form, we allow our poets some liberties as can be seen by reading the above compilation of limericks. While the beat of the limerick cannot always be preserved, try to maintain the rhyming pattern and syllable count. Points are not deducted if you vary from the rules. :mrgreen:

As for the "Leeds" one, you're right as usual. Whether you say it as: "There was a young lady from Leeds," which emphasises the "was" in order for it to flow properly. The alternative - "There once was a lady from Leeds" does the same thing, only misses the word "young" out, but I think that we've now established that we know how to form a proper limerick, syllables and emphasis to boot, as Yogi says, there's margin for slight deviations providing the rhyming words are as close as possible. : )

Hello Stasia - of course you can have a go. Why not go back to Games People Play, click onto Limericks (3) and add to whatever limerick's there, or start a new one if the last one's been completed. We do a line each and see how it turns out. :cool2: